The no-pain, all-gain Brazilian

by Julie Alpine-Crabtree

I’m seeing adverts all over the place at the moment for the “permanent blow-dry”.

A treatment that’s kind to hair, locks in shine and shape, means you can rough-dry your hair after each wash and end up looking like you’ve just stepped out of a salon? For UP TO SIX MONTHS? Sounds like the ideal thing for time-poor women everywhere, right?

Except it doesn’t. Not to me. No matter how many friends run their fingers through their Uma-Thurman-in-Pulp-Fiction-perfect bobs or tell me about great deals they’ve seen on Groupon (including on the French version, which is infinitely sexier than ours because you roll the ‘r’ when you say it), the thought of being permanently glossy fills me with unease. Glossy doesn’t wake up one morning and decide to channel Kate Bush. Glossy doesn’t have a thing about caramel Rice Krispies bars. Glossy isn’t genuinely indifferent when a perfectly aimed spoonful of prune puree lands on one’s fringe and dries rock-hard in a matter of seconds.

But at least the “permanent blow-dry” is only semi-permanent. As for having the permanent laser hair removal version of a “Hollywood”, well, that’s right up there with waterboarding. I refer you to Caitlin Moran, in whose book How to Be a Woman there appears a seven-page rant on the delights of pubic hair which includes the observation: “Lying on a hammock, gently finger-combing your Wookie whilst staring up at the sky is one of the great pleasures of adulthood.”

The thing is, fashions change so fast. Just look at these pages from a 1995 Ann Summers catalogue, unearthed recently in a box stored in my parents’ attic since my student days. (I know, I know, but who can afford Myla at the age of 20? I’m 38 and I still can’t afford Myla.)

Well, I say fashions change fast, but looking at these photos again, it would seem that I’ve been mistaken. I’m not too fickle for forever. That hairstyle in the centre pic – mine! Those make-up techniques – mine!

Anyway, who am I kidding? Motherhood in itself is not exactly a fleeting state. It’s not like you can take them out and it’ll grow back over, like earrings. It’s more like branding.

I think I’ll book that Brazilian blowout tomorrow. Shake things up a bit.

Is that you in the pic? You go girl!!
I have a brazillian blow-dry! I swear by it, don’t need to do anything to my hair. Literally just wash and go…. does mean I am stuck with the same shade of hairstyle though!